Applying virtual machine performance objectives on a storage system

ABSTRACT

Service level objectives (SLOs) defined for a storage system are associated with VMs running on hosts. For an I/O operation for a virtual machine (VM) running on a host system, storage processing is performed on the I/O operation in accordance with the SLO defined for the VM. The same storage system-defined SLOs may be applied to VMs running on multiple host systems. SLOs may be maintained by the storage array and shared with one or more host systems in I/O communication with the storage system. SLOs may be defined using a user interface of a storage system, host system, virtualizer control station or other component of a storage network, and communicated to the storage system, which may maintain the SLOs, and may disseminate them to one or more hosts. The SLOs then may be associated with VMs running on the hosts and tagged to I/O communications corresponding to the VMs.

BACKGROUND Technical Field

This application generally relates to data storage and, in particular,I/O performance on a data storage system.

Description of Related Art

Data storage systems may include resources used by one or more hostsystems (i.e.,“hosts”). Data storage systems and host systems may beinterconnected by one or more communication connections such as in anetwork. These resources may include, for example, data storage devicessuch as those included in the data storage systems manufactured by EMCCorporation of Hopkinton Mass. (“Dell EMC”). These data storage systemsmay be coupled to one or more host systems, where the data storagesystems provide storage services to each host system. Multiple datastorage systems from one or more different vendors may be connected andmay provide data storage services for one or more host systems.

A host may perform a variety of data processing tasks and operations.For example, a host may perform I/O operations such as data read andwrite operations that are sent to the data storage system. Host systemsmay store data to and/or retrieve data from a storage device included ina data storage system containing a plurality of host interface units,physical storage devices or drives, and physical storage interfaceunits. The storage device may be a logical storage device. The hostsystems access the storage device through a plurality of channelsprovided therewith. Host systems may perform I/O operations through thechannels to the data storage system, and the data storage systemprovides data to the host systems also through the channels. The hostsystems do not address the physical storage devices or drives of thedata storage system directly, but rather, access what appears to thehost systems as a plurality of logical storage devices or units (whichmay or may not correspond to the actual physical storage devices ordrives). Allowing multiple host systems to access a single storagedevice allows the host systems to share data of the storage device. Inorder to facilitate sharing of the data on the storage device,additional software on the data storage systems also may be used.

A host system may host applications that utilize storage devices of thestorage system. For a given application, to perform I/O operationsutilizing a storage device of the storage system, one or more componentsof each of: a host; a switch; and a storage system may be used; i.e.,communications for performing I/O operations may be transmitted throughthese one or more components. The one or more combinations of componentsof the host, switch and storage system over which I/O operations betweenan application and storage device can be communicated may be consideredan I/O path between the application and the storage device. These I/Opaths define a connectivity of the storage network.

On some data storage networks, virtualization technology may be employedon the host, in which a virtualizer (e.g., an ESXi™ hypervisor madeavailable from VMware, Inc. of Alto, Calif.) virtualizes hardwarecomponents, and may serve as a hypervisor that in some cases can beconsidered an operating system (OS), which allows multiple virtualmachine (VMs) to be run on the host concurrently, sharing hardwareresources.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In some embodiments of the invention, service level objectives definedfor a storage system of a storage network are applied to virtualmachines defined for one or more host systems of the storage network.The method includes: defining a plurality of service level objectivesfor the storage system to apply to I/O operations on the storage system,receiving an I/O communication including an I/O operation to beperformed for a first virtual machine of a plurality of virtual machinesdefined for the one or more host systems, determining a first servicelevel objective, of the plurality of service level objectives, assignedto the first virtual machine, and processing the I/O operation on thestorage system in accordance with the determined first service levelobjective. The method may include one or more of: communicating theplurality of service level objectives to one or more other components ofthe storage network, where the one or more other components include theone or more host systems and/or a virtualizer control station on thestorage network, receiving information for the plurality of virtualmachines, the information including, for each of the plurality ofvirtual machines, a service level objective assigned to the virtualmachine, and storing the received information in a data structure on thestorage system, the data structure including a plurality of entries,each entry representing one of the plurality of virtual machines.Determining the first service level objective may include reading afield of the I/O communication that specifies the service levelobjective.

In some embodiments, a system for applying service level objectivesdefined for a storage system of a storage network to virtual machinesdefined for one or more host systems of the storage network includes oneor more processors and memory comprising code stored thereon that, whenexecuted, performs the above-described method.

In some embodiments, one or more computer-readable media, for example,non-transitory computer-readable media, have software stored that definethe above-described method of applying service level objectives definedfor a storage system of a storage network to virtual machines definedfor one or more host systems of the storage network.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Features and advantages of the present invention will become moreapparent from the following detailed description of illustrativeembodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawingsin which:

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating an example of a service levelobjective table.

FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating an example of a system accordingto embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 2A is a block diagram illustrating an example of a data storagesystem according to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 2B is a block diagram illustrating an example of logical internalcommunications between directors and memory of the data storage systemof FIG. 2A according to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a system includinga host system communicatively coupled to a data storage system viamultiple I/O paths, according to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a plurality oflogical layers of a combination of a host system and a data storagesystem for processing an I/O request, according to embodiments of theinvention;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a storage networkfor associating service objectives defined by a storage system withvirtual machines running on host systems, according to embodiments ofthe invention;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a data structureassociating virtual machines with service level objectives, according toembodiments of the invention; and

FIGS. 7A and 7B collectively are a flow chart illustrating an example ofa method of associating service level objectives defined by a storagesystem with virtual machines running on host systems, according toembodiments of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

On some data storage networks, service levels objectives (SLOs) or thelike may be defined and used, each SLO specifying one or more I/Operformance objectives. For example, performance objectives may includeany of a variety or types of performance objectives corresponding to I/Oworkloads, for example, average response time, average response time forreads or writes specifically, a read cache hit rate threshold, aworkload volume threshold, a workload volume density threshold, otherperformance objectives, performance objectives corresponding to one ofthe foregoing, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. A storagesystem may define SLOs that then may be associated with (e.g., assignedto) one or more storage devices or groups of storage devices defined onthe storage system, where each storage group may be associated with oneor more applications running on hosts.

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating an example of a SLO table 1. Itshould be appreciated that other embodiments of an SLO table, forexample, variations of SLO table 1, are possible, and are intended tofall within the scope of the invention.

SLO table 1 may include a plurality of entries 9, including entries 9a-9 f. Each entry may represent an SLO, and may specify: an SLO ID(e.g., number) in column 2, an SLO name in column 4, a response timeobjective (or one or more other performance objectives) in column 6, andother information in column 8. SLO table 1 illustrates SLOs 1-5 havingrespective names: Diamond, Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze may, eachspecifying a different performance objective. Table 1 also specifies inentry 9 a an SLO ID of 0, meaning that no SLO has been specified. ForSGs (and VMs in accordance with embodiments of the invention asdescribed in more details below) having and SLO=0, I/O operations may betreated as Optimized as described in more detail below.

For example, if Diamond SLO is assigned to a Storage Group (SG) 1 andGold SLO is assigned to SG 2, the storage system may be configured totry to achieve an average I/O time for SG 2 of 3 microseconds, but noless than 3 microseconds, and have an average I/O time for SG 1 of lessthan one microsecond. The system may be configured to give higherpriority to achieving the higher priority SLO (e.g., corresponding tolower RT). For example, in the above example, if SG 2 is experiencing ahigh volume of I/O such that attempting to achieve its Gold SLO ismaking it difficult or impossible to achieve the Diamond SLO for SG 1,then the response time objective for Gold may be raised, e.g., to 5seconds, and one or more of the other SLO response time objectives maybe adjusted as well. By raising the response time objective of one ormore of the lower priority SLOs, the system may devote less resources toachieving workloads for SGs assigned these SLOs, and thus may devotemore resources to the higher-priority SLO, thereby increasing theprobability of achieving the response time objective of thehigher-priority SLO for SGs to which it is assigned. It should beappreciated that any number of SLOs having any of a variety ofperformance objectives (including combinations of performanceobjectives) may be defined. In some embodiments, if no SLO correspondingto a response time objective is defined for a storage device (or ifSLO=0), then an SLO of Optimized may be assigned (e.g., Optimized mayserve as a default SLO), in which all I/Os for the storage device willbe treated on a first-come, first-served basis relative to I/Os of otherstorage devices, regardless of the SLOs of the other storage devices. Itshould be appreciated that, if all active storage devices are assignedan SLO of Diamond in the above example, then the I/O of each storagedevice will receive the same treatment as if it had an SLO of Optimized.In some embodiments, all SGs and/or VMs are initialized to an SLO=0(Optimized) until another SLO is assigned thereto. It should beappreciated that, in accordance with some embodiments of the invention,SLOs may be applied to VMs and modified in a same or similar manner asdescribed above in relations to SGs.

SLOs also may be defined and applied on host systems. For example, somecurrently available virtualization solutions deploy limited variationsof SLOs on a per-VM basis, where the SLOs are defined and enforced onthe host system by a virtualizer of a host system. The host system mayperform I/O operations with a storage system for its VMs, and applyvirtualizer-based per-VM SLOs to the VM, but the storage system is notaware of such SLOs. Thus, on the storage system, virtualizer-based,per-VM SLOs are not applied, and the storage system may apply its ownstorage-system-based SLOs, which do not take into account the VMsassociated with I/O operations. Thus, an I/O operation may have anassociated SLO on a host system that is different than an SLO associatedwith the I/O operation on a storage systems, which may result indifferent priority treatment being afforded the I/O operation on thehost and storage system.

Further, each host system (e.g., server) or virtualizer thereof maydefine its own SLOs and act independently of the other host systems,and, because the storage system is not aware of the host- orvirtualizer-based SLOs, there may be no cross-host enforcement. As aresult, one host system may consume a disproportionate amount of storagearray resources outside of the control of the storage system.

Described herein are innovative systems and techniques that includeassociating SLOs defined for a storage system with VMs running on one ormore hosts, and, for an I/O operation of a VM, performing storageprocessing on the storage system in accordance with the SLO defined forthe VM. The same storage system-defined SLOs may be applied to VMsrunning on multiple host systems. SLOs may be maintained by the storagearray and shared with one or more hosts communicatively coupled toperform I/O with the storage system. For example, SLOs may be definedusing a user interface of a storage system, host, virtualizer controlstation (e.g., a vCenter™ system made available by VMware) or othercomponent of a storage network, and communicated to the storage system,which may maintain the SLOs, and may disseminate them to one or morehosts. Thus, the same SLOs may be used by the host system and aplurality of hosts, two or more of which may be made available fromdifferent vendors. A virtualizer control station (VCS) may be configuredto access, configure and manage virtualizers and VMs residing on one ormore host systems of a storage network.

In some embodiments, a VCS may include a storage interface component(SIC); e.g., a Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) made available by DellEMC, that enables communication between a storage system and the VCS. AnSIC (e.g., an extension thereof) may be configured to enable a storagesystem (or a user interface component thereof) to exchange SLOinformation with the VCS. For example, a storage system-specific SICplug-in/adapter/extension (hereinafter “plugin”) may be configured tomap SLO information between the storage system and the VCS. For example,the storage system may communicate SLOs defined on the storage system tothe VCS via the storage system-specific plugin to the SIC. A user,utilizing a UI and/or programmatic API, CLI and/or REST interface,and/or other type of interface of the VCS or the storage system, mayassociate an SLO with one or more VMs, which may be persisted,maintained and controlled by the storage system, for example, in a tableof VM name:SLO pairs. In some embodiments, VMs for which an SLOdefinition is not desired may default to being “optimized” (e.g., nospecial treatment afforded by the array).

SLOs defined for VMs may be communicated between a VCS, storage system,host and other components of the data storage network as VM Name:SLOpairs or in any other suitable manner. The VM Name may be world-wideunique, and may be persisted in memory of the storage system and perhapsother components of the storage network.

Each time a host system is rebooted, the host system may determineVM-SLO assignments from storage system on which the assignments arepersisted, or other components of the storage network on which theVM-SLO assignments are persisted. For example, a multi-path driver (MPdriver); e.g., a multipath I/O engine (MPIO) of the host system (e.g.,PowerPath made available by Dell EMC) may issue a vendor-unique (VU)SCSI command to the storage system to read a table of VM Name:SLO pairs.The host system may store its own table of VM Name:SLO pairs, e.g., incache, based on the table read from the storage system. In someembodiments, The MP driver may determine the name of each of the VMsrunning on the host from the virtualizer, for example, using VM handlesprovided by the virtualizer, and may refine the table of VM Name:SLOpairs to only include the VMs active on the host system. In someembodiments, the table of VM Name:SLO pairs includes the SLO ID (number)of the SLO (e.g., 0-5).

In response to receiving an I/O request including an I/O operation froman application of a VM running on the host (e.g., via the virtualizer),the MP driver may determine the originating VM Name for the I/O request,and determine the SLO value (number and/or name) assigned to the VM fromthe table of VM name:SLO pairs. The MP driver may tag an I/Ocommunication to be sent to the storage system, which includes the I/Ooperation, with the determined assigned SLO value, e.g., using avendor-unique (VU) SCSI command. For example, a 5-bit group-ID field ofa SCSI Command Descriptor block (CDB) may be used to specify a number(or other value) corresponding to the SLO. The storage system mayreceive the I/O communication including the SLO-value tag, and managethe I/O operation on the storage system per the SLO, e.g., per theinformation about the SLO provided in an SLO table.

Illustrative embodiments of the invention will now be described in moredetail in relation to the figures.

Referring now to FIG. 1B, shown is an example of an embodiment of asystem 10 according to some embodiments of the invention. The system 10includes a data storage system 12 connected to host systems 14 a-14 nthrough communication medium 18. In this embodiment of the system 10,the N hosts 14 a-14 n may access the data storage system 12, forexample, in performing input/output (I/O) operations or data requests.The communication medium 18 may be any one or more of a variety ofnetworks or other type of communication connections as known to thoseskilled in the art. The communication medium 18 may be a networkconnection, bus, and/or other type of data link, such as a hardwire orother connections known in the art. For example, the communicationmedium 18 may be the Internet, an intranet, network or other wireless orother hardwired connection(s) by which the host systems 14 a-14 n mayaccess and communicate with the data storage system 12, and also maycommunicate with others included in the system 10.

Each of the host systems 14 a-14 n and the data storage system 12included in the system 10 may be connected to the communication medium18 by any one of a variety of connections as may be provided andsupported in accordance with the type of communication medium 18. Theprocessors included in the host computer systems 14 a-14 n may be anyone of a variety of proprietary or commercially available single ormulti-processor system, such as an Intel-based processor, or other typeof commercially available processor able to support traffic inaccordance with each particular embodiment and application.

It should be appreciated that the particulars of the hardware andsoftware included in each of the components that may be included in thedata storage system 12 are described herein in more detail, and may varywith each particular embodiment. Each of the host computers 14 a-14 nand data storage system may all be located at the same physical site,or, alternatively, also may be located in different physical locations.Communication media that may be used to provide the different types ofconnections between the host computer systems and the data storagesystem of the system 10 may use a variety of different communicationprotocols such as, for example, SCSI, ESCON, Fibre Channel, iSCSI, FCoE,GIGE (Gigabit Ethernet), NVMeoF (NVMe over Fabric) and the like. Some orall of the connections by which the hosts and data storage system 12 maybe connected to the communication medium 18 may pass through othercommunication devices, such as switching equipment, a phone line, arepeater, a multiplexer or even a satellite.

Each of the host computer systems may perform different types of dataoperations in accordance with different tasks and applications executingon the hosts. In the embodiment of FIG. 1B, any one of the hostcomputers 14 a-14 n may issue a data request to the data storage system12 to perform a data operation. For example, an application executing onone of the host computers 14 a-14 n may perform a read or writeoperation resulting in one or more data requests to the data storagesystem 12.

Referring now to FIG. 2A, shown is an example of an embodiment of thedata storage system 12 that may be included in the system 10 of FIG. 1B.Included in the data storage system 12 of FIG. 2A are one or more datastorage systems 20 a-20 n as may be manufactured by one or moredifferent vendors. Each of the data storage systems 20 a-20 n may beinter-connected (not shown). Additionally, the data storage systems alsomay be connected to the host systems through any one or morecommunication connections 31 that may vary with each particularembodiment and device in accordance with the different protocols used ina particular embodiment. The type of communication connection used mayvary with certain system parameters and requirements, such as thoserelated to bandwidth and throughput required in accordance with a rateof I/O requests as may be issued by the host computer systems, forexample, to the data storage system 12. In this example, as described inmore detail in following paragraphs, reference is made to the moredetailed view of element 20 a. It should be noted that a similar moredetailed description also may apply to any one or more of the otherelements, such as 20 n, but have been omitted for simplicity ofexplanation. It should also be noted that an embodiment may include datastorage systems from one or more vendors. Each of 20 a-20 n may beresources included in an embodiment of the system 10 of FIG. 1B toprovide storage services to, for example, host computer systems.

Each of the data storage systems, such as 20 a, may include a pluralityof physical data storage devices (e.g., physical non-volatile storagedevices), such as disk devices or volumes, for example, in anarrangement 24 consisting of n rows of disks or volumes 24 a-24 n. Inthis arrangement, each row of disks or volumes may be connected to adisk adapter (“DA”) or director responsible for the backend managementof operations to and from a portion of the disks or volumes 24. In thesystem 20 a, a single DA, such as 23 a, may be responsible for themanagement of a row of disks or volumes, such as row 24 a. System 20 aalso may include a fabric that enables any of disk adapters 23 a-23 n toaccess any of disks or volumes 24-24N, in which one or more technologiesand/or protocols (e.g., NVMe or NVMe-oF) may be employed to communicateand transfer data between the DAs and the disks or volumes. The system20 a also may include one or more host adapters (“HAs”) or directors 21a-21 n. Each of these HAs may be used to manage communications and dataoperations between one or more host systems and the global memory. In anembodiment, the HA may be a Fibre Channel Adapter or other type ofadapter which facilitates host communication.

Also shown in the storage system 20 a is an RA or remote adapter 40. TheRA may be hardware including a processor used to facilitatecommunication between data storage systems, such as between two of thesame or different types of data storage systems.

One or more internal logical communication paths may exist between theDAs, the RAs, the HAs, and the memory 26. An embodiment, for example,may use one or more internal busses and/or communication modules. Forexample, the global memory portion 25 b may be used to facilitate datatransfers and other communications between the DAs, HAs and RAs in adata storage system. In one embodiment, the DAs 23 a-23 n may performdata operations using a cache that may be included in the global memory25 b, for example, in communications with other disk adapters ordirectors, and other components of the system 20 a. The other portion 25a is that portion of memory that may be used in connection with otherdesignations that may vary in accordance with each embodiment.

It should be generally noted that the elements 24 a-24 n denotingphysical storage devices may be any suitable physical storage devicesuch as a rotating disk drive, flash-based storage, and the like. Theparticular data storage system as described in this embodiment, or aparticular physical storage device thereof, such as a rotating disk orsolid-state storage device (SSD; e.g., a flash-based storage device),should not be construed as a limitation. Other types of commerciallyavailable data storage systems, as well as processors and hardwarecontrolling access to these particular devices, also may be included inan embodiment.

In at least one embodiment, write data received at the data storagesystem from a host or other client may be initially written to cachememory (e.g., such as may be included in the component designated as 25b) and marked as write pending. Once written to cache, the host may benotified that the write operation has completed. At a later point time,the write data may be destaged from cache to the physical storagedevice, such as by a DA.

Host systems provide data and access control information throughchannels to the storage systems, and the storage systems also mayprovide data to the host systems also through the channels. The hostsystems do not address the disk drives of the storage systems directly,but rather access to data may be provided to one or more host systemsfrom what the host systems view as a plurality of LUNs. The LUNs may ormay not correspond to the actual disk drives. For example, one or moreLUNs may reside on a single physical disk drive. Data in a singlestorage system may be accessed by multiple hosts allowing the hosts toshare the data residing therein. The HAs may be used in connection withcommunications between a data storage system and a host system. The RAsmay be used in facilitating communications between two data storagesystems. The DAs may be used in connection with facilitatingcommunications to the associated disk drive(s) and LUN(s) residingthereon.

Referring to FIG. 2B, shown is a representation of the logical internalcommunications between the directors and memory included in a datastorage system according to some embodiments of the invention. Includedin FIG. 2B is a plurality of directors 37 a-37 n coupled to the memory26. Each of the directors 37 a-37 n represents one of the HAs, RAs, orDAs that may be included in a data storage system. In an embodimentdisclosed herein, there may be up to sixteen directors coupled to thememory 26. Other embodiments may use a higher or lower maximum number ofdirectors that may vary. The representation of FIG. 2B also includes anoptional communication module (CM) 38 that provides an alternativecommunication path between the directors 37 a-37 n. Each of thedirectors 37 a-37 n may be coupled to the CM 38 so that any one of thedirectors 37 a-37 n may send a message and/or data to any other one ofthe directors 37 a-37 n without needing to go through the memory 26. TheCM 38 may be implemented using conventional MUX/router technology wherea sending one of the directors 37 a-37 n provides an appropriate addressto cause a message and/or data to be received by an intended receivingone of the directors 37 a-37 n. In addition, a sending one of thedirectors 37 a-37 n may be able to broadcast a message to all of theother directors 37 a-37 n at the same time.

In an embodiment of a data storage system in accordance with techniquesherein, components such as HAs, DAs, and the like may be implementedusing one or more “cores” or processors each having their own memoryused for communication between the different front end and back endcomponents rather than utilize a global memory accessible to all storageprocessors.

It should be noted that although examples of techniques herein may bemade with respect to a physical data storage system and its physicalcomponents (e.g., physical hardware for each HA, DA, HA port and thelike), techniques herein may be performed in a physical data storagesystem including one or more emulated or virtualized components (e.g.,emulated or virtualized ports, emulated or virtualized DAs or HAs), andalso a virtualized or emulated data storage system including virtualizedor emulated components.

In an embodiment in accordance with techniques herein, the data storagesystem as described may be characterized as having one or more logicalmapping layers in which a logical device of the data storage system isexposed to the host whereby the logical device is mapped by such mappinglayers of the data storage system to one or more physical devices.Additionally, the host also may have one or more additional mappinglayers so that, for example, a host side logical device or volume ismapped to one or more data storage system logical devices as presentedto the host. The unqualified term “storage device” as used herein meansa logical device or physical storage device.

Storage system 12 or one or more components thereof described inrelation to FIGS. 1B-2B may be implemented using one or more Symmetrix®,VMAX® or VMAX3® systems (hereinafter referred to generally as VMAXstorage systems) made available from Dell EMC.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a system 100including a host system 102 communicatively coupled to a data storagesystem 120 via multiple I/O paths, according to embodiments of theinvention. Other embodiments of system including a host systemcommunicatively coupled to a data storage system via multiple I/O paths,for example, variations of system 100, are possible and are intended tofall within the scope of the invention. The system 100 may beimplemented using one or more components of the system 10, for example,one or more storage systems 12 and/or one or more hosts 14 a-14 n, orvariation thereof.

The system 100 may include a host system 102, switch 140 and datastorage system 120. The host system 102 and data storage system 120 maycommunicate over one or more I/O paths through the switch 140. Elements110 a-110 c denote connections between the host system 102 and switch140. Element 112 a-112 c denote connections between the data storagesystem 120 and the switch 140. Element 130 may represent a physicalstorage device of the data storage system 120, such as a rotating diskdrive, flash-based or other solid state storage device, or the like,where the physical storage device 130 may be configured to include threeLUNs—LUN5, LUN6 and LUN10. It should be noted that the system 100includes only a single host system 102, single physical device 130 with3 LUNs, a single data storage system 120, and a single switch forpurposes of simplicity to illustrate the techniques herein. For example,each of the LUNs may be configured to have storage provisioned frommultiple different physical devices rather than a single physicaldevice, and multiple host systems having multiple applications executingthereon may communicate with the data storage system.

It should be appreciated that the descriptions provided in the followingparagraphs may refer to particular examples using the switch 140 havinga switching fabric for simplicity of illustration. Element 140 may be asingle switch having a switching fabric, or a multi-switch having amulti-switch fabric and the like. Thus, element 140 may more generallydenote a network having its own connectivity fabric or network fabricwhere the network may include one or more components providing theconnectivity between the host system 102 and data storage system 120.

The host system 102 may be implemented as a server, and may include anapplication 104, a multi-path (MP) driver 106 and other components 108such as, for example, one or more other device drivers and other code.An I/O request (specifying an I/O operation) from the application 104may be communicated to the data storage system 120 using the MP driver106 and one or more other components 108. The application 104 may be adatabase or other application which issues data operations, such as I/Ooperations, to the data storage system 120. Each of the I/O operationsmay be directed to a target device, such as one of the LUNs of device130, configured to be accessible to the host system 102 over multipleI/O paths. As such, each of the I/O operations may be forwarded from theapplication 104 to the data storage system 120 over one of the possiblemultiple I/O paths. The MP driver 106 may include functionality toperform any one or more different types of processing such as related toencryption, multi-pathing, mirroring, migration, and the like. Forexample, the MP driver 106 may include multi-pathing functionality formanagement and use of multiple I/O paths. For example, the MP driver 106may perform I/O path selection to select one of the possible multipleI/O paths based on one or more criteria such as load balancing todistribute I/O requests for the target device across available activeI/O paths. Load balancing may be performed to provide for betterresource utilization and increased performance of the host system, datastorage system, and network or other connection infrastructure. The MPdriver 106 may be included in a commercially available product such as,for example, Dell EMC PowerPath® software made available by Dell EMC.Other components 108 of the host system 102 may include one or moreother layers of software used in connection with communicating the I/Ooperation from the host system to the data storage system 120 such as,for example, Fibre Channel (FC) or SCSI drivers, a logical volumemanager (LVM), or the like. The other components 108 may includesoftware or other components used when sending an I/O operation from theapplication 104 to the data storage system 120, where such componentsmay include those invoked in a call stack above and/or below the MPdriver 106. For example, application 104 may issue an I/O operationwhich is communicated via a call stack including an LVM, the MP driver106, and an FC or SCSI driver, e.g., as described elsewhere herein inmore detail.

The data storage system 120 may include one or more physical datastorage devices, such as device 130, where each such physical device maybe configured to store data of one or more LUNs. Each of the LUNs havingdata stored on the device 130 may be configured to be accessible to thehost system 102 through one or more I/O paths. For example, all LUNs of130 may be accessible using ports of the three front-end directors orinterfaces 122 a-122 c, also denoted respectively as host adapters HA1,HA2 and HA3. The multiple I/O paths allow the application I/Os to berouted over multiple I/O paths and, more generally, allow the LUNs ofdevice 130 to be accessed over multiple I/O paths. In the event thatthere is a component failure in one of the multiple I/O paths, I/Orequests from applications can be routed over other alternate I/O pathsunaffected by the component failure. The MP driver 106 may be configuredto perform load balancing in connection with I/O path selection, as wellas other processing. The MP driver 106 may be aware of, and may monitor,all I/O paths between the host system and the LUNs of the device 130 inorder to determine which of the multiple I/O paths are active oravailable at a point in time, which of the multiple I/O paths areunavailable for communications, and to use such information to select anI/O path for host system-data storage system communications.

In the example of the system 100, each of the LUNs of the device 130 maybe configured to be accessible through three I/O paths. Each I/O pathmay be represented by two path endpoints having a first endpoint on thehost system 102 and a second endpoint on the data storage system 120.The first endpoint may correspond to a port of a host system component,such as a host bus adapter (HBA) of the host system 102, and the secondendpoint may correspond to a port of a data storage system component,such as a port of an HA of the data storage system 120. In the exampleof the system 100, elements A1, A2 and A3 each denote a port of a hostsystem 102 (e.g., a port of an HBA), and elements B1, B2 and B3 eachdenote a port of an HA of the data storage system 120. Each of the LUNsof the device 130 may be accessible over three I/O paths—a first I/Opath represented by A1-B1, a second I/O path represented by A2-B2 and athird I/O path represented by A3-B3.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a plurality oflogical layers 150 of a combination of a host system (e.g., the hostsystem 102 of FIG. 3) and a data storage system (e.g., the data storagesystem 120) for processing an I/O request, according to embodiments ofthe invention. Other embodiments of a plurality of logical layers of acombination of a host system and a data storage system for processing anI/O request, for example, variations of logical layers 150, are possibleand are intended to fall within the scope of the invention. FIG. 4provides further detail regarding various software layers that may beused in connection with the MP driver 106 of FIG. 3. The varioussoftware layers of 150 may generally form layers included in the runtimeI/O stack, such as when an I/O request is issued by an application on ahost system to a data storage system. The system includes an applicationlayer 121 which includes application programs executing on the hostsystem computer 102. The application layer 121 may refer to storagelocations using an associated label or identifier such as a file name orfile identifier. Below the application layer 121 is the file systemlayer 123 and the LVM layer 125 a that maps the label or identifierspecified by the application layer 121 to a LUN which the host systemmay perceive as corresponding to a physical device address (e.g., theaddress of one of the disk drives) within the storage system. Below theLVM layer 125 a may be the MP (multi-path) driver 106 which handlesprocessing of the I/O received from layer 125 a. The MP driver 106 mayinclude a base driver and one or more driver extension modules. The MPdriver 106 may be implemented using a commercially available productsuch as Dell EMC PowerPath software.

Functionality for performing multi-pathing operations, such as may beperformed by Dell EMC PowerPath software, may be included in one of thedriver extension modules such as a multi-path extension module. Asdescribed above, the MP driver may perform processing in connection withmultiple I/O path management and selecting one of a plurality ofpossible I/O paths for use in connection with processing I/O operationsand communicating with the data storage system, such as data storagesystem 120 of FIG. 3. More generally, one or more layers between theapplication layer 121 and the MP driver 106, for example, the filesystem 123, may provide for mapping a LUN (such as used in connectionwith block-based storage), presented by the data storage system to thehost system, to another logical data storage entity, such as a file,that may be used by the application layer 121. Below the MP driver 106may be the SCSI driver 125 b and a hardware (HW) driver 125 c. The SCSIdriver 125 b may handle processing of a received I/O request from the MPdriver 106 such as related to forming a request in accordance with oneor more SCSI standards. The driver 125 c may be a hardware driver thatfacilitates communication with hardware on the host system. The driver125 c may be, for example, a driver for an HBA of the host system whichsends commands or requests to the data storage system and also receivesresponses and other communications from the data storage system. Itshould be appreciated that, in some embodiments, the ordering of the MPdriver 106 and SCSI driver 125 b may be reversed. That is, in somecases, the MP driver 106 sits below the SCSI driver 126 b.

In some embodiments, layers 121-125 c are implemented on a host (e.g.,the host system 102) coupled to a data storage system (e.g., the datastorage system 120) that is an intelligent data storage system havingits own mapping layer 127 such that the LUN known or exposed to the hostsystem may not directly correspond to a physical device such as a diskdrive. In such embodiments, the LUN specified by the host system in theI/O operation may be further mapped by the data storage system using itsmapping layer 127. For example, a LUN specified by the host system maybe mapped by the data storage system to one or more physical drives, andmultiple LUNs may be located on a same physical device, multiplephysical drives, and the like.

The MP driver 106, as well as other components illustrated in FIG. 4,may execute in a kernel mode or another privileged execution mode. Insome embodiments using a Unix-based OS, the MP driver 106 may beexecuted in kernel mode, whereas an application such as represented byapplication layer 121 may typically execute in user mode, or moregenerally, a non-privileged execution mode. It should be appreciatedthat embodiments of the invention may be implemented using any of avariety of different suitable OSs including a Unix-based OS, aLinux-based system, any one of the Microsoft Windows® OSs, or other OSs.Additionally, the host system may provide a virtualized environment andmay execute, for example, VMware ESX® or VMware ESXi™ software providingbare-metal embedded hypervisors.

In operation, an application executing at application layer 121 mayissue one or more I/O requests specifying I/O operations (e.g., read andwrite operations) to logical volumes (implemented by the LVM 125 a) orfiles (implemented using the file system 123), whereby such I/O requestsmay be mapped to I/O communications (specifying the I/O operation)directed to LUNs of the data storage system. Such I/O operations fromthe application layer 121 may be directed to the MP driver 106 afterpassing through any intervening layers such as, for example, the layers123 and 125 a. Communications between an initiator port of the hostsystem and a target port of a data storage system (e.g., target port ofan HA) may include those related to I/O operations and other non-I/Ocommands such as related to host system control operations. I/Ooperations may include, for example, read and write operations withrespect to data stored on a LUN.

In connection with the SCSI standard, an I/O path may be defined betweenan initiator port of the host system and a target port of the datastorage system. An I/O request may be sent from the host system (e.g.,from a component thereof such as an HBA), which may be referred to as aninitiator, originator or source with respect to the foregoing I/O path.The host system, as the initiator, sends I/O requests along the I/O pathto a data storage system (e.g., a particular component thereof such asan HA having a port with a network address), which may be referred to asa target, destination, receiver, or responder. Each physical connectionof an I/O path may be between a first endpoint which is a port of thehost system (e.g., such as an HBA having ports such as denoted as A1-A3of FIG. 3) and a second endpoint which is a port of an HA (e.g., such asB1-B3 of FIG. 3) in the data storage system. Through each such I/O path,one or more LUNs may be visible or exposed to the host system initiatorthrough the target port of the data storage system.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a storage network500 for associating SLOs defined by a storage system with VMs or thelike running on host systems, according to embodiments of the invention.Other examples of a storage network for associating SLOs defined by astorage system with VMs running on host systems, for example, variationsof storage network 500, are possible and intended to fall within thescope of the invention. Storage network 500 may include one or more hostsystems 502, 524, a VCS 516 and one or more storage systems, forexample, storage system 540.

VCS 516 may be configured to access, configure and manage virtualizers(e.g., 508, 532) and VMs (e.g., any of VMs 504, 506, 526 and 528)residing on one or more host systems (e.g., 502, 524) of storage network500. VCS 516 may be configured to define one or more VMs, includinggiving an identifier to each VM. In some embodiments, each VM identifier(e.g., name) is unique with respect to other VMs within storage network500 such that no two or more VMs have the same identifier. For example,VCS 516 may ensure that each VM is given a unique name within storagenetwork 500. In some embodiments of the invention, each VM is world-wideunique such that no two or more VMs in storage network 500 or otherstorage networks in communication with storage network 500 have a sameidentifier. For example, VCS 516 may be in communication with one ormore VCSs from other storage networks and may be configured to ensurethat each VM in network 500 is given a unique name worldwide.

VCS 516 may include a VM-SLO assignment table 520 and one or more SICs518 and/or plugins thereof. Each SIC 518 and/or a plugin thereof mayenable communication between a storage system (e.g., 540) and VCS 516.For example, a storage system-specific SIC plugin within SIC 518 may beconfigured to map SLO information between storage system 540 and VCS516. For example, storage system 540 may communicate SLOs defined onstorage system 540 to VCS 516 via a storage system-specific plugin tothe SIC 518. A user, utilizing a UI and/or programmatic API, CLI and/orREST interface, and/or other type of interface of VCS 516 or storagesystem 540, may associate (e.g., assign) an SLO with one or more VMs,which may be maintained and controlled by the storage system. Theassignments of SLOs to VMs may be stored in VM-SLO assignment table 520,which may be implemented as VM-SLO assignment table 600 described inmore detail in relation to FIG. 6.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a data structure(e.g., table) 600 associating VMs with SLOs, according to embodiments ofthe invention. Other examples of a data structure 600 associating VMswith SLOs, for example, variations of data structure 600, are possibleand intended to fall within the scope of the invention. For illustrativepurposes, data structure 600 is often referred to herein as VM SLOassignment table 600, but it should be appreciated that other types ofdata structures may be used, for example, linked lists andobject-oriented data structures.

VM SLO assignment table 600 may include a plurality of entries 610,including entries 610 a-610 f Each entry may correspond to a VM, thename of which may reside in VM name column 602, and each entry mayspecify an ID (e.g., integer) identifying an SLO in SLO ID column 603and a name identifying the SLO in SLO name column 604. For example,entry 610 c indicates that the VM named “Acme Sales Back” has anassigned SLO ID of 5 for the SLO name Bronze. The VM SLO assignmenttable 600 may be populated by a VCS and shared with the a storage systemand/or one or more host systems as described in more detail elsewhereherein.

Returning to FIG. 5, information within VM-SLO assignment table 520,including SLOs defined for VMs, may be communicated between VCS 516,storage system 540, host systems 502 and 524 and/or other components ofstorage network 500 as VM Name:SLO pairs, for example, as described inmore detail elsewhere herein. The SLO portion of the VM Name: SLO pairmay be the SLO ID or the SLO name. In some embodiments, informationwithin VM-SLO assignment table 520 may be communicated as VM Name:SLOtriplets, which include the SLO ID and the SLO name.

Storage system 540 may be, include, or be included within any of datastorage systems 12, 20 a or 120 described in more detail above. Storagesystem 540 may include one or more host adapters, e.g., HAs 542, 544,each of which may include one or more ports communicatively coupled toports of one or more host systems (e.g., host systems 502 and 524). Thestorage system may include an SLO table 545, which may be implemented asSLO table 1 described in relation to FIG. 1A, and may include VM-SLOassignment table 546 that holds assignments of SLOs to VMs, which may beimplemented, for example, as VM SLO assignment table 600 described inmore detail in relation to FIG. 6. VM-SLO assignment table 546 may bepopulated with information received from VCS 516, for example,information from VM-SLO table 520.

Host system 502 may be, include, or be included as part of host system102 and/or one or more host systems 14 a-14 n described above. Hostsystem 502 may include any of: one or more hardware components 512, anMP driver 510, a virtualizer 508, a VM-SLO assignment table 514, one ormore VMs 504, 506, other components (not shown); or any suitablecombination of the foregoing. The one or more virtual machines 504, 506may run as threads of a virtualizer 508 running on host system 502, thevirtualizer 508 controlling a virtualization of hardware components 512for each VM 504, 506. The virtualizer 508 may serve as an operatingsystem of the host system 502 or provide many key components (e.g., akernel) of an operating system (e.g., serve as a Type I “bare metal”hypervisor like the ESXi hypervisor) or may itself be a softwareapplication running as a process of an underlying operating system(e.g., as a Type II “hosted” hypervisor). It should be appreciated thatwhile only two VMs 504 and 506 are illustrated, any number of VMs can berunning on host system 502 under control of the virtualizer 508, to theextent possible given the compute and memory resources of the hostsystem 502 and capabilities of virtualizer 508.

Host system 502 may be implemented as a server, and one or moreapplications may be executing on the host system, for example, withinone of the virtual machines 504, 506, or independently of any VM (e.g.,independently of virtualizer 508, communicating directly with anoperating system on host 502). An I/O request (specifying an I/Ooperation) originating from the one of the VMs 504, 506 may becommunicated to the data storage system 540 using the MP driver 510,perhaps in conjunction with one or more other components (not shown). MPdriver 510 may be, include or be included within MP driver 108 describedabove, and may have any of the capabilities of MP driver 108. Inaddition, MP driver 510 may be configured to communicate withvirtualizer 508 and utilize VM-SLO assignment table 514, as described inmore detail elsewhere herein.

One or more applications may execute within each VM executing on hostsystem 502, including VMs 504, 506. Each application may be a databaseor other application for which the VM issues data operations, such asI/O operations, to the data storage system 540 via virtualizer 510. Thenumber of VMs and the association of VMs to applications, businessentities, business units within a business entity, locations (site,building, floor, etc) may be configured in any of a variety of waysdepending on any of a variety of factors. For example, in someembodiments, VMs may be configured to be specific to business units,whereas in some embodiments VMs may be specific to applications orspecific to applications utilized by a particular business unit.

As described in more detail elsewhere herein, associations between VMsand SLOs may be communicated from storage system 540 to host system 502,and also may be communicated to the host system 502 from VCS 516,another host system (e.g., host system 524) or another component ofnetwork 500. For example, the host system 502 (e.g., MP driver 510) maylog into storage system 540 (e.g., when host system 502 is powered on,refreshed or rebooted), and, during the log-in process, may issue a VUSCSI command to the storage system to read the VM-SLO assignment table546, in response to which the storage system 540 may communicate thecontents of the VM SLO assignment table 546, or at least the portionscorresponding to VMs running on the host system, to the host system 502.The host system 502 may store the VM-SLO assignments on the host system.For example, the MP driver, one or more other components on host system502, or a combination thereof may store the VM-SLO associations, forexample, a copy of the VM SLO assignment table, or a copy of one or moreportions thereof corresponding to VMs running on the host system, asVM-SLO assignment table 514. In some embodiments, the MP driver 510and/or other component may determine the VMs currently running on thehost system 502 and assign a SLO ID to each VM, for example, in VM-SLOassignment table 514, as described in more detail elsewhere herein.

As described in more detail in relation to FIGS. 7A and 7B, MP driver510 may be configured to communicate with virtualizer 508 to determine aVM ID (e.g., name) associated with each I/O operation received atvirtualizer 508, determine the SLO ID associated with the VM, forexample, using VM SLO-ID table 514; and create an I/O communication thatincludes the I/O operation with the SLO ID (or append the SLO ID to anexisting I/O communication for the I/O operation) that is sent from thehost system 502 to the storage system 540. For example, an unused field(e.g., group ID field) of a command descriptor block (CMD) of a SCSIcommunication may be populated with the SLO ID and sent to the storagesystem.

The form of the value to be used for SLO ID may be selected inconsideration of how the SLO ID will be communicated to other componentson network. For example, if a field to be used for communication (e.g.,the group ID field of an SCSI CDB) is limited to five bits, then it maybe desirable to use an integer having a value of 0-15 as a SLO ID, forexample, in embodiments when 15 or fewer SLOs are being used. The MPdriver 510, another component of host system 502 (or even anothercomponent of storage network 500) may be configured to populate VM-SLOassignment table 514 for the VMs running on host system 502, forexample, using information conveyed by the storage system or VCS asdescribed in more detail elsewhere herein.

Host system 524 may include any of: VM3 526, VM4 528, virtualizer 532,MP driver 534, hardware 536 and VM-SLO assignment table 530, which maybe configured at least similar to components of the same name of hostsystem 502 and perform at least similar functions thereto.

Storage Management Module 522 may be configured to enable a user toperform one or more management functions on storage system 540, forexample, creating SLOs, assigning SLOs to VMs or SGs, other functionsand communication of any of the foregoing to other components of network500. For example, storage management module 522 may be configured toimplement any of Solutions Enabler™ software, Unisphere™ software orother storage management products made available from Dell EMC. In someembodiments, at least some of the storage system management functionsmay be embodied in the storage system itself, for example, as part of amanagement module control station (MMCS) of a PowerMax™ system madeavailable from Dell EMC.

FIGS. 7A and 7B collectively are a flowchart illustrating an example ofa method 700 of associating SLOs defined by a storage system withvirtual machines running on host systems, according to embodiments ofthe invention. Other examples of a method of associating SLOs defined bya storage system with virtual machines running on host systems, forexample, variations of method 700, are possible and intended to fallwithin the scope of the invention.

In step 702, a plurality of SLOs may be defined for a storage system(e.g., storage system 540). For example, SLOs may be defined using auser interface of a storage system, host system, VCS or other componentof a storage network. If not defined on the storage system itself, theSLOs may be communicated to the storage system, which may persist andmaintain the SLOs. These SLOs may be stored in an SLO table (e.g., SLOtable 545). In step 704, the SLOs may be communicated to a VCS (e.g.,VCS 516), one or more host systems (e.g., host systems 502, 524) orother system components.

In step 706, for each of a plurality of VMs, one of the plurality ofSLOs may be assigned to the VM. For example, a VCS (e.g., VCS 516) maybe configured to allow a user to associate (e.g., assign) SLOs to knownVMs running on one or more host systems (e.g., host systems 502, 524),and may be configured to do so for VMs it later configures to run onhost systems. The assignment of SLOs to VMs may be recorded andmaintained, for example, in VM-SLO assignment table 520 described abovein relation to FIG. 5.

In step 708, VM-SLO assignments may be communicated to a storage system.For example, contents of VM-SLO table 520 may be communicated to storagesystem 540. The VM-SLO assignments may be similarly communicated toother components of a storage network, including host systems.

In step 710, the VM-SLO assignments may be persisted on a storagesystem, for example, in VM-SLO assignment table 546 described in moredetail elsewhere herein.

In step 712, one or more host systems (e.g., an MP driver thereof) maydetermine VM-SLO assignments from a storage system (if not alreadycommunicated to them by the storage system or VCS). For example, in someembodiments, the host system 502 or 524 may log into storage system 540(e.g., when host system is powered on, refreshed or rebooted), and,during the log-in process, the host system (e.g., MP driver 510, 534)may issue a vendor-unique (VU) SCSI command to the storage system toread VM-SLO assignment table 546, and the storage system 540 maycommunicate the contents of the VM SLO assignment table 546, or at leastthe portions corresponding to VMs (e.g., 504, 506, 526 or 528) runningon the host system, to the host system 502 or 524, respectively. Forexample, the MP driver 510, 534, one or more other components on hostsystem 502, 524 or a combination thereof, respectively, may store theVM-SLO associations, for example, a copy of the VM SLO assignment table546, or a copy of one or more portions thereof corresponding to VMsrunning on the host system, in a VM-SLO assignment table (e.g., 514,530).

In step 714, the MP driver (e.g., 510, 534) or another component of thehost system may determine names of VMs running on the host system, forexample, using VM handles provided by a virtualizer (e.g., 508, 532).That is, in some embodiments, the VM of an I/O operation is notspecified in an I/O operation passed from the virtualizer to MP driver,but rather each I/O operation passed from the virtualizer to the MPdriver includes a process ID identifying the operating system (OS)process (i.e., thread) of the virtualizer. However, the virtualizer alsomay include a VM handle (e.g., reference) along with the I/O operationfrom which the MP driver can determine the VM by making API calls to thevirtualizer using the VM handle if so desired. Making such API calls mayimpose a relatively high performance hit on the host system.Accordingly, in some embodiments, such calls are not made for every I/Ooperation, but rather, for example, are made periodically, e.g., onceevery hour, minute or second, or a predefined multiple thereof. Thedetermined VM name for the VM handle may be cached (i.e., stored innon-volatile cache memory) by the MP driver and used to determine the VMname for each I/O operation including the handle, until a nextdetermination of the VM name for the respective process. It should beappreciated that it is possible, even if unlikely, that the VM nameassociated with a handle may change during the interval between whichthe VM name is determined. The length of the temporal interval (e.g., 1second, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, etc.) may be selected to balancethe likelihood of the VM associated with a VM handle changing during theinterval with the performance cost of making the API call.

In step 718, an I/O request may be received from a VM (e.g., any ofthose illustrated in FIG. 5) running on the host system, and, in step720, the MP driver or another component on the host system may determinean originating VM of the I/O request, for example, based on a VM handleprovided by the virtualizer, e.g., by accessing the VM name associatedwith the VM handle in cache. In step 722, an SLO ID associated with theVM may be determined, for example, by the MP driver. For example, anentry in a VM-SLO assignment table (e.g., 514, 530) for the VMdetermined in step 720 may be accessed, from which the associated SLOmay be determined.

In step 724, an I/O communication may be created for the I/O operationof the I/O request received in step 718, and the I/O communication maybe tagged with the SLO ID determined in step 722; i.e., the I/Ocommunication may be populated with the SLO ID determined in step 718.The I/O communication may be a SCSI communication including a CDB, and apredefined field (e.g., group ID field) of the CDB not being used forother purposes may be populated with the SLO ID.

In step 726, the host system may send the I/O communication to thestorage system (e.g., 540). In step 728, the storage system (e.g., adirector thereof) may determine the SLO from the SLO ID; for example, byreading the group ID field of a SCSI CDB, and may process the I/Ocommunication based on the SLO determined in step 730.

Steps 718-730 may be repeated for each I/O received from a VM on one ormore hosts. It should be appreciated that the order of performance ofthe steps of method 700 are not limited to the order illustrated inFIGS. 7A and 7B, and that some steps or portions thereof may beperformed in parallel with other steps or portions thereof. For example,any of steps 718-730 may be performed for an I/O request concurrently toany of steps 718-730 being performed for another I/O request.

Is some embodiments of the invention, the storage system also may beconfigured with capability to determine SLOs for I/O operations based onthe storage group (SG) associated with the I/O operation. In someembodiments, an SG-defined SLO may be overridden by the SLO associatedwith a VM of the I/O operation. For example, if it is determined from anI/O communication received from a host system (e.g., from group ID fieldof an SCSI CDB) that a VM-specific SLO has been specified, theVM-specific SLO may override the SG-defined SLO. In some embodiments,the storage system may define a default SLO value (e.g., Optimized) forall SGs, which then may be overridden by a VM-specific SLO if specified.

In some embodiments, it may be determined that a certain majority(e.g., >90%) of SGs on the storage system map one-to-one to VMs on thehost system, in which case it may be decided that it is not desirable toimplement VM-specific SLOs on the storage system; e.g., because of theamount of resources consumed to do so, when in most cases theSG-specific SLOs are consistent with the VM-specific SLOs.Alternatively, a decision may be made to implement the system andtechniques herein with respect to associating storage system SLOs withVMs, for example, if it is determined that there is less of a one-to-onecorrelation (e.g., below a certain threshold) between SGs and VMs.

Using the systems and techniques described herein, host systems,including multi-path drivers thereof, can apply SLOs to VMs that areconsistent between the host system and storage system. Further, thestorage system can apply VM-specific SLOs to I/O operations on the hostsystem, and apply a consistent set of SLOs for VMs across multiple hostsystems. Further, in the event an SLO is not defined for a VM, thestorage system can still apply SG-defined SLOs and/or a default SLOvalue (e.g., Optimized) to VM I/O operations on the storage system.

Various embodiments of the invention may be combined with each other inappropriate combinations. Additionally, in some instances, the order ofsteps in the flowcharts, flow diagrams and/or described flow processingmay be modified, where appropriate. It should be appreciated that any ofthe methods described herein, including method 700, or parts thereof,may be implemented using one or more of the systems, data structuresand/or displays described in relation to FIGS. 1A-6 or componentsthereof. Further, various aspects of the invention may be implementedusing software, hardware, a combination of software and hardware and/orother computer-implemented modules or devices having the describedfeatures and performing the described functions.

Software implementations of embodiments of the invention may includeexecutable code that is stored in a computer readable medium andexecuted by one or more processors. The computer readable medium may benon-transitory and include a computer hard drive, ROM, RAM, flashmemory, portable computer storage media such as a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM, aflash drive, an SD card and/or other drive with, for example, auniversal serial bus (USB) interface, and/or any other appropriatetangible or non-transitory computer readable medium or computer memoryon which executable code may be stored and executed by a processor.Embodiments of the invention may be used in connection with anyappropriate OS.

Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled inthe art from a consideration of the specification or practice of theinvention disclosed herein. It is intended that the specification andexamples be considered as exemplary only, with the true scope and spiritof the invention being indicated by the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of applying a plurality of service levelobjectives defined for a storage system of a storage network to aplurality of virtual machines defined for a plurality of host systems ofthe storage network, the method comprising: defining the plurality ofservice level objectives for the storage system to apply to I/Ooperations on the storage system; the storage system communicating theplurality of service level objectives to one or more other components ofthe storage network; receiving an I/O communication including an I/Ooperation to be performed for a first virtual machine of the pluralityof virtual machines; determining a first service level objective, of theplurality of service level objectives, assigned to the first virtualmachine; and processing the I/O operation on the storage system inaccordance with the determined first service level objective.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the one or more other components include theplurality of host systems.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one ormore other components include a virtualizer control station on thestorage network.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receivinginformation for the plurality of virtual machines, the informationincluding, for each of the plurality of virtual machines, a servicelevel objective, of the plurality of service level objectives, assignedto the virtual machine.
 5. The method of claim 4, furthering comprising:storing the received information in a data structure on the storagesystem, the data structure including a plurality of entries, each entryrepresenting one of the plurality of virtual machines and specifying aservice level objective assigned to the virtual machine.
 6. The methodof claim 4, wherein the plurality of virtual machines includes at leastone virtual machine from a first of the plurality of host systems, andat least one virtual machine from a second of the plurality of hostsystems.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the first servicelevel objective includes reading a field of the I/O communication thatspecifies the service level objective.
 8. A system for applying aplurality of service level objectives defined for a storage system of astorage network to a plurality of virtual machines defined for aplurality of host systems of the storage network, the system comprising:one or more processors; and memory comprising code stored thereon that,when executed, performs a method comprising: defining the plurality ofservice level objectives for the storage system to apply to I/Ooperations on the storage system; the storage system communicating theplurality of service level objectives to one or more other components ofthe storage network; receiving an I/O communication including an I/Ooperation to be performed for a first virtual machine of the pluralityof virtual machines; determining a first service level objective, of theplurality of service level objectives, assigned to the first virtualmachine; and processing the I/O operation on the storage system inaccordance with the determined first service level objective.
 9. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the one or more other components include theplurality of host systems.
 10. The system of claim 8, wherein the one ormore other components include a virtualizer control station on thestorage network.
 11. The system of claim 8, wherein the method furthercomprises: receiving information for the plurality of virtual machines,the information including, for each of the plurality of virtualmachines, a service level objective, of the plurality of service levelobjectives, assigned to the virtual machine.
 12. The system of claim 11,wherein the method further comprises: storing the received informationin a data structure on the storage system, the data structure includinga plurality of entries, each entry representing one of the plurality ofvirtual machines and specifying a service level objective assigned tothe virtual machine.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein the pluralityof virtual machines includes at least one virtual machine from a firstof the plurality of host systems, and at least one virtual machine froma second of the plurality of host systems.
 14. The system of claim 8,wherein determining the first service level objective includes reading afield of the I/O communication that specifies the service levelobjective.
 15. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media, thecomputer-readable media having software stored thereon defining a methodof applying a plurality of service level objectives defined for astorage system of a storage network to virtual machines defined for oneor more host systems of the storage network, the software comprising:executable code that defines the plurality of service level objectivesfor the storage system to apply to I/O operations on the storage system;executable code that controls the storage system to communicate theplurality of service level objectives to one or more other components ofthe storage network; executable code that receives an I/O communicationincluding an I/O operation to be performed for a first virtual machineof the plurality of virtual machines; executable code that determines afirst service level objective, of the plurality of service levelobjectives, assigned to the first virtual machine; and executable codethat processes the I/O operation on the storage system in accordancewith the determined first service level objective.
 16. The one or morenon-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the one ormore other components include at least one of: the one or more hostsystems; and a virtualizer control station.
 17. The one or morenon-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the softwarefurther comprises: executable code that receives information for theplurality of virtual machines, the information including, for each ofthe plurality of virtual machines, a service level objective, of theplurality of service level objectives, assigned to the virtual machine.18. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 17,wherein the software further comprises: executable code that stores thereceived information in a data structure on the storage system, the datastructure including a plurality of entries, each entry representing oneof the plurality of virtual machines and specifying a service levelobjective assigned to the virtual machine.
 19. The one or morenon-transitory computer-readable media of claim 17, wherein theplurality of virtual machines includes at least one virtual machine froma first of the one or more host systems, and at least one virtualmachine from a second of the one or more host systems.
 20. The one ormore non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, whereinexecutable code that determines the first service level objectiveincludes executable code that reads a field of the I/O communicationthat specifies the service level objective.